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Soft drink companies agreed to voluntary guidelines to remove sugar dense sodas from public schools in a deal brokered by the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association in 2006, but advocates for healthy food choices are calling for tighter restrictions. The global campaign, Dump Soft Drinks, and new legislation being drafted in the Senate are calling for nutrition-based limitations in the food and beverages available in easy-to-reach school vending machines.

Proposed Amendment Seeks to Reduce Soda and Junk Food in Schools

After years of advocating for improved nutritional standards in schools, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R., AK) and Tom Harkin (D., IA) say they will offer an amendment to the Senate farm bill that will “improve the diets and nutrition of America’s school children by setting reasonable, common-sense standards for the foods and beverages that are sold in school vending machines and similar outlets” [1].

The nutritional standards for food sales haven’t changed since the late 1970’s, “when microwaves were considered cutting-edge, newfangled technology,” Harkin told The Wall Street Journal [2]. The proposed legislation would eliminate soft drinks and other high sugar beverages from elementary and middle school, but would allow low-fat flavored milk products, diet sodas, and sports drinks in high schools. It would also place limits on salty, high calorie and fatty snack foods.

Global Dump Soft Drinks Campaign

Setting nutrition standards for school vending machines is just one of Dump Soft Drinks‘ recommendations. The campaign is lead by two advocacy groups well versed in both national and global public health fights for healthy diets and food. With theDump Soft Drinks campaign, the Center for

The campaign emphasizes global health effects beyond schools. In the US and Europe, rates of obesity and diabetes are increasing due to unhealthy diets and lack of physical activity, a trend now reaching global dimensions. In their report “Soft Drinks and Obesity—Global Threats to Diet and Health” [3], Dump Soft Drinks shows specific examples of the correlation between increasing soda consumption and rising diabetes rates in countries like Mexico and China. The report also points to the role played by transnational corporations that market nutritionally empty products in developing countries—many of which, paradoxically, continue to be burdened by under-nutrition.

The campaign calls for marketing restrictions on companies like Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. that spend billions on target marketing each year. Following the United Kingdom’s new legislation that limits marketing to younger audiences, Dump Soft Drinks wants to see the end of US soft drink marketing to children and teenagers under 16. They also advocate for labeling regulations and propose a value-added tax to soft drinks that would go toward boosting government health and nutrition education programs.

1. Increase the promotion of new lower-sugar products, sell existing high sugar products in smaller portions, and support independently funded research on the use of safe substitute sweeteners.

2. Cease all marketing of sugar-laden beverages to children under 16, including print and broadcast advertising, product placement, the Internet, mobile phones, athletic event sponsorship, signage, merchandising, and other means.

3. Prominently display the calorie content, per serving, of all beverages on the fronts of containers and the outer labels of multi-container packages, along with the number of servings per bottle or can as part of a comprehensive labeling system utilizing simple and uniform symbols to convey nutritional value. Sugary beverages should also include rotating consumer alerts such as “High sugar – drink only occasionally” or “For occasional consumption. Drink water to quench thirst.”

4. Stop promoting and selling sweetened beverages, including sports drinks and fruit flavored beverages and teas, in all public and private elementary, middle, and high schools; sell fruit juice in container sizes of 250 ml or less.

5. Pay a modest Value Added Tax on soft drinks – with governments using the proceeds for nutrition education and physical activity programs and to subsidize the costs of fruits and vegetables.

6. Ensure that sponsorships involving the promotion of physical activity and health be made in a transparent fashion only to independent health charities or government agencies which, in turn, use such funds for programs not associated with the company’s logo, brands, or other proprietary information. Physical activity and nutrition education programs sponsored by beverage companies should not convey the impression that all products produced by the company are healthful and nutritious.

Opponents cite declining US and European soft drink sales and ask “Why not let parents and children make their own food and beverage decisions?” In an interview with Fox News, CSPI spokesperson, Bruce Silverglade, addressed this concern. “Coca-cola and Pepsi spend almost $5 billion dollars a year advertising their products worldwide. That is a sum that is exponentially higher than the amount spent on nutrition education… Marketing undermines … parental authority and counteracts the efforts by parents to teach their children to live more healthily” [4].

Working to fight the childhood obesity epidemic, both The Global Dump Soft Drinks Campaign and the Senate farm bill amendment agree that as a learning environment, schools are obligated to model healthy food choices as nutrition education by limiting the sales of soft drinks and junk food.

CSPI worked with Senators Harkin and Murkowski to develop legislation that would receive broad support. Health advocates and food and beverage industry allies are now standing behind the proposed federal nutrition-based standards. Though battles to push the legislation through Congress remain to be fought, it is currently endorsed by the American Dietetic Association, the American Public Health Association and the National PTA, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Cadbury Schweppes and the American Beverage Association.

The problem of conflicts of interest between the pharmaceutical industry and prescribing physicians

The Prescription Project seeks to ensure that “industry-physician relationships are free of conflicts of interest and that physicians base their prescribing decisions on accurate and unbiased information.” Recent events such as Merck’s withdrawal of Vioxx after aggressively promoting its use to physicians and consumers and an FDA warning on GlaxoKlineSmith’s heavily promoted diabetes drug Avandia have focused public attention on the ways that the drug industry promotes its products.

The Prescription Project was founded in 2007 to encourage new approaches to ending conflicts of interest. In combination with a team of academic researchers, two of the project’s directors published an article on the problem of conflicts of interests between industry and physicians in the Journal of American Medical Association [1]. Community Catalyst, a national non-profit health care advocacy organization, founded the Prescription Project in partnership with the Institute on Medicine as a Profession, a research center at Columbia University with funding from the Pew Charitable Trust. Jim O’Hara, the managing director of policy initiatives at Pew, explained the rationale for the Project, “If you’ve been in the waiting room when these Chinese lunches are taken into the back office, it may raise the question whether the decisions are based on the best scientific evidence about medication or whether or not those Sichuan shrimp have something to do with the prescribing patterns” [2]. The pharmaceutical industry spends $7 billion dollars per year marketing to doctors and another $18 billion on samples for physicians and patients [3].

Research and Policy Guidance for Academic Medical Centers and Government

By conducting research on the influence of pharmaceutical marketing on physician prescribing behavior, The Prescription Project provides evidence to guide policy recommendations for medical institutions. The group also conducts case study investigations of Academic Medical Centers (AMCs), seeking to understand the impact of its suggested guidelines. For example, if such studies show that the pharmaceutical industries continue to support drug research in institutions that impose guidelines, other institutions may overcome their resistance to change. Already several medical centers, including those at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford and the University of Michigan have implemented or announced restrictions on drug industry marketing to their physicians.

The Project also seeks to influence national policy on conflict of interest rules such as the Physician Payments Sunshine Act recently introduced to the Senate [4]. Charles Grassley (R-IA), co-author of the Sunshine Act, recently told the New York Times ”Right now, the public has no way to know whether a doctor’s been given money that might affect prescribing habits” [5]. Media coverage of these proposals offers the Prescription Project an opportunity to influence the national debate [6].

The Prescription Project also advocates at the state level, urging legislatures to follow the precedent set by states like Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire that have passed prescription confidentiality legislation [7]. Though the law has been overturned and is now being fought in appeals court, New Hampshire’s 2006 Prescription Confidentiality Act was the first of its kind [8].

Prescription Project Critics

The Project has attracted criticism both from the pharmaceutical industry and physicians. Critics within medical institutions argue the Prescription Project’s guidelines to reduce conflicts of interest are unnecessary because physicians do not make decisions based on “pizza and pens,” as Harvard Medical School hematologist Thomas Stossel is quoted saying in a recent Lancet article [9]. Stossel is concerned that restrictions on interactions between the drug industry and physicians could obstruct the biomedical advances that have come out of collaborative research partnerships [9].

The drug industry insists that the guidelines the Prescription Project proposes are unnecessary. Ken Johnson, senior vice president at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said, “A new law is not necessary when pharmaceutical marketing is already heavily regulated by the Food and Drug Administration [5].” In addition, the American Medical Association, which received more than $46 million for its 2005 sale of data on physician prescribing practices [7], has yet to take a position on the federal proposal [10]. (See box below).

Despite those who feel that guidelines on industry-physician relationships are not needed, studies show that free samples and meals, gifts, funding for travel and lodging, continuing medical education, research funding, and honoraria funded by pharmaceutical companies do influence physician prescribing and professional behavior [11]. Social and psychological studies indicate gift-giving can bias decisions about patient care and create an unspoken reciprocity agreement wherein physicians are obligated to prescribe the products most heavily marketed to them [12, 13]. This situation not only creates real or perceived conflicts-of-interest, but may also increase overall drug spending [14].

Beyond voluntary guidelines

Based on this evidence [15] and its own research [13] on the psychological dynamics of industry marketing, the Prescription Project believes that voluntary guidelines will not prevent conflict-of-interest [13]. They recommend instead the prohibition of industry-physician interactions [13]. The Prescription Project’s Executive Director, Robert Restuccia, commends AMCs, such as Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine, which have taken up the groups recommendations because they “recognize the harmful impact of pharmaceutical marketing—it undermines better patient care, increases our nation’s health care costs and ultimately decreases confidence in physician independence” [16]. For The Prescription Project, AMCs serve as model institutions for strict mandates because of their ability to adopt change quickly and instill medical ethics in coming generations of medical providers.

Data Mining

For more than 65 years, the American Medical Association has been selling pharmaceutical companies the Physician Masterfile, a database that contains information on the prescribing practices and other characteristics of 900,000 practitioners, most of whom are not AMA members [17]. Most physicians are unaware of this practice. The drug companies then use data mining techniques to understand the profiles of prescribers of their products and provide pharmaceutical sales representatives, “drug detailers”, with the guidance needed on how best to approach individual doctors. The Prescription Project has collaborated with the National Physicians Alliance and American Medical Student Association to demand an end to the sale of this information to pharmaceutical companies and better protection of physician privacy.

Data mining is a big business for data collection companies such as IMS Health Inc., Plymouth Meeting, Verispan L.L.C., Wolters Kluwer Health. These businesses combine physician data with pharmaceutical prescribing data from pharmacy chains and other prescription sources to form complex physician profiles. The data mining groups then sell the hybrid information to drug companies, which in turn, create specialized marketing efforts directed at individual providers. The AMA insists the sale of the Masterfile is strictly for “licensure,” the legitimate process of verifying credentials and maintaining continuing medical education efforts [17], but the hefty profit its sale turns each year and the failure of the society to inform practitioners of the practice, has led many to call for policy change.

At the annual AMA meeting in Chicago this past summer, physicians engaged in the conflict-of-interest problem spoke out against the AMA’s relationship with Pharma interest groups. A member of the National Physicians Alliance, Dr. Ben Schaefer said he understands the necessity of physician prescribing data for research and continuing education, but states, “As a physician, I want my prescription information to be protected from commercial exploitation” [18]. Three states have passed legislation that either prohibits data mining or allows physicians to make their own privacy decisions, but in each case, data mining companies have sued.

Drug companies argue the data mining restrictions violate commercial free speech and threaten public health research. Chief Executive Director of Wolters Kluwer Health, Jeff McCaulley, admits “It’s true that the pharmaceutical sales reps were using these lists to target high-prescribing doctors,” but he says the pharmaceutical industry has changed its practices and is now more “responsible” with physician data [19]. Despite these claims, pharma interests have vowed to take legal action against any similar measures.

The Prescription Project has taken on a role as watchdog on the data mining issue. Legal council, Sean Flynn, noted that “the incorporation of prescribers into the commission structure of pharmaceutical sales incentives debases the medical profession, and, the more the practice becomes public, (the more it) breaks the chain of trust between doctor and client” [18].

In a recent study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 1 researchers found that low income 3 to 5 year old children preferred the taste of hamburgers, chicken, French fries, carrots or low fat milk if they thought the products were from McDonald’s, whether or not they actually were. Thus, in their first years of life, children had come to associate McDonald’s branding with desirable foods, creating a lifetime potential for obesity and over consumption of the high fat, low nutrient products that McDonald’s features. To understand its success in imprinting even the youngest children, Corporations and Health Watch investigated the range of McDonald’s activities geared towards children. By focusing on the specific ways that one company goes about reaching children, we hope to gain insights that can guide public health strategies to reduce childhood obesity.

According to its 2006 Annual Report, McDonald’s is the leading global foodservice retailer with more than 30,000 local restaurants serving 52 million people in more than 100 countries each day. Its 2006 revenues were $ 21.6 billion, up 16% from 2004.

McDonald’s leads in food advertising to children

Marketing directly to children began in the 1960s. McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc, along with Walt Disney, has been credited with recognizing that children constitute a valuable and distinct market segment. Kroc observed that, “A child who loves our TV commercials and brings her grandparents to a McDonald’s gives us two more customers.” 2(p. 41) Developing brand loyalty in children influences both later purchases and the buying patterns of parents. At the forefront of marketing to children, McDonald’s spends more on advertising in general than any other brand. 2(p. 4) In 2006, McDonald’s spent almost $2.5 million a day on traditional advertising in the United States. About 40% of McDonald’s total advertising budget is directed at children. 3(p.102)

The use of cartoon characters and icons

Ronald McDonald, the face of McDonald’s, is a symbol of the corporation’s dedication to reaching young customers. The only fictional character with a higher degree of name recognition by children is Santa Claus. 2(p.4) A study of 9-10 year old Australian youth demonstrated that more than half believed that Ronald McDonald knew what was best for them to eat. 3(p.100) To reinforce the association of fun and entertainment with its fast food, McDonald’s offers a line of videos featuring Ronald McDonald and the McDonaldland characters. McDonald’s use of cartoons to market to children extends to the Internet as well. An earlier version of the McDonald’s children’s website told young visitors Ronald was the “ultimate authority on everything” and they were encouraged to send Ronald an email telling him their favorite food items, their favorite sports team, favorite book and their name. 2(p. 45) Directly soliciting children for personal information is now prohibited without parental approval thanks to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 2000. One of the McDonald’s current websites aimed at children, Ronald.com, tells children they can “learn, play and create while having fun.” On the site, children interact with “adver-games” which are designed to engage children with both the game and an advertisement. The site’s games all feature Ronald McDonald somewhere in the game. Happymeal.com, a site designed to encourage children toward physical activity, also prominently features the “Happy Meals” logo each time a new game is opened.

Restaurant design

The atmosphere of McDonald’s itself is designed to be “family friendly.” McDonald’s operates more than 8.000 playgrounds around the United States, more than any other private American corporation and far more than any municipality. Originally modeled on Disney World, the playgrounds provide an environment that is designed to appeal to children through bright colors, toys and clowns, and also to parents by providing a safe place for children to play. For children who live in low-income neighborhoods without safe or adequately maintained public parks and playgrounds, McDonald’s may offer one of the few opportunities for such forms of play and sociality. Birthday and other parties can be held at many McDonald’s which provides, on a cost per child basis, the food, invitations, paper and plastic wear, party entertainers, party favors and clean-up afterward. These design elements contribute to associating McDonald’s with fun and socialibility.

Toys and entertainment

In 1979, McDonald’s launched its first “Happy Meal,” which included numerous toys such as a “McDoodler stencil,” a puzzle book, and McDonaldland character eraser in a cardboard box with a circus theme. By 2003, 20% of McDonald’s meals sold were Happy Meals and they accounted for $3.5 billion in revenues. The fast food giant stands as one the United State’s largest distributors of toys. 2(p. 4) In addition to toys, McDonald’s appeals directly to children through cartoon characters, catchy jingles, and food shaped and colored to appeal to children. In addition, McDonald’s develops strategic partnerships, sponsorships, character licensing agreements and endorsements with celebrities and corporations such as NBA stars, Disney, the Fox Kids Network, DreamWorks and the Olympics. 2 Among the celebrities who have done product endorsements for McDonald’s are Venus and Serena Williams, Cedric the Entertainer, Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. Through such alliances, McDonald’s aims to have children associate the good feelings they have about celebrities, characters and companies with McDonald’s itself. That fit and celebrated athletes promote its products further associates McDonald’s with health and fitness.

In addition to television commercials featuring celebrities and promoting cartoon character toy give-a-ways, McDonald’s targets children through product placement and sponsorship. The fast food company has paid to have its food products featured in such children’s films as “George of the Jungle,” “The Flintstones,” and “Richie Rich.” 3(p.113) McDonald’s also sponsored the children’s show “The Teletubbies” and distributed toys representing the four characters. As with the Teletubbies, the company produces multiple versions of toys associated with movies and television. 4(p. 181) Children are encouraged to collect them all to obtain the full set, thus encouraging return visits—and more Happy Meals. In 1999 alone, McDonald’s released eighty different versions of Furby. 2(p.47)

McDonald’s marketing to children extends beyond television commercials, kid-friendly websites, toys and playgrounds. In 1987 McDonald’s launched their “McKids” line of clothing that was initially sold at Sears, Roebuck & Co. It was later picked up by Wal-Mart which dropped the line in 2003. Now McKids is offering a line of branded toys such as bikes, skateboards and scooters designed to encourage children to be more active between their visits to the Golden Arches.

McEducation

In their 2005 study of the clustering of fast food restaurants around public schools, Bryn et al reported that “Fast-food restaurants are concentrated within a short walking distance from schools, exposing children to poor-quality food environments in their school neighborhoods.” In the early years of McDonald’s, founder Ray Kroc actually flew in a Cessna scouting for new sites near schools. 2(p. 66) Like other fast food companies, McDonald’s does more than just place itself close to schools; in recent years it has opened outlets within high school cafeterias. According to a recent CDC survey, in 2006, 24% of the nation’s high schools and 19% of its middle schools offered on-site brand name fast foods.

McDonald’s also sponsors Channel One programming, provides educational curricula that feature information about working at McDonald’s and offers incentive programs, like “McSpellit Club,” whereby students can earn meals at the restaurant for spelling, reading and good attendance. 4,5 In addition, McDonald’s is a client of Cover Concepts, a company which provides branded textbook covers free to students and schools. 5 Finally, in 2005, with 31,000 elementary schools around the country, McDonald’s launched its “Passport to Play” program, aimed at encouraging physical fitness for third through fifth graders. Each time children play a game from around the country, they receive a golden arches stamp on a pretend passport. The website states, “Passport to Play is a fun way to keep kids’ minds engaged and bodies active. Teach your students how kids from around the world play, snack and grow [emphasis added].” Bryn Austin, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Boston Children’s Hospital suggested the program might be a “Trojan Horse” created to keep McDonald’s name in schools.

But McDonald’s doesn’t just take money from students; it raises money for them. In New Haven, CT, a group of teachers and staff from the New Haven Middle School participated in a McDonald’s educational program working a 4 hour shift at the counters and the drive-up window. By doing so, their school received 20% of the profits during the time they staffed the establishment. While the teachers worked, students decorated the walls of the restaurant with pictures of the golden arches. 3(p. 130) On October 13 of this year, 450 McDonald’s establishments in Tennessee participated in a similar “McTeachers Night” program. In addition, the corporation sponsors young people’s sports teams such as the McDonald’s All American High School Basketball Team.

Strategic Locations and Charity

To keep its name in front of young people, McDonald’s develops partnerships with institutions where children are likely to be found. In August 2001, the fast food corporation began a 10 year, $16 million contract with the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum. The museum features McDonald’s food as well as food from two other companies owned by McDonald’s, Boston Market and Donatos Pizzeria.3(p. 300) The Philadelphia Children’s Hospital and other children’s hospitals around the country feature a McDonald’s in their facilities. Finally, The Ronald McDonald House Charities has provided housing and meals to families with more than two million seriously ill children, further reinforcing the idea that Ronald McDonald and the McDonald’s corporation care about children’s health.

Influencing parents to reach children

Children are believed to influence approximately $500 billion of spending each year. 3(p. 101) Thus, while McDonald’s focuses much of its marketing on children, the fast food giant also seeks to influence parents’ purchasing decisions. Corporate memos discuss the company’s desire for adults to feel like “good parents” by taking their children to McDonald’s in order to make them happy. 2(p. 50). To counter criticism that fast and junk foods contribute to obesity and other health problems, McDonald’s recently launched a contest to recruit mothers for three day paid field trips where they will be given access to the farms “where our fresh ingredients are grown, to our world-class suppliers and to our restaurants.”

McWorld

As McDonald’s saturates US markets and succeeds in attracting young Americans as lifetime customers, growth increasingly depends on expanding its consumer base through overseas marketing. McDonald’s opens about four new restaurants every day overseas. 2(p.229) The table below shows the growth in McDonald’s outlets in various parts of the world between 1991 and 2001. 3(p.58)

Growth in McDonald’s Outlets by World Region, 1991-2001

In preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, McDonald’s is promoting aninternational contest for 300 children, 100 from China, to win trips to the games.

The increased visibility and availability of McDonald’s around the world has succeeded in reaching greater numbers of children. At one primary school in Beijing, all of the children recognized and liked Ronald McDonald, and believed that “Uncle McDonald was funny, gentle, kind and…understood children’s hearts.” 2(p. 231) In Japan, 98% of children recognized Ronald McDonald; In England the figure was 93%. 3(p. 99) Ronald McDonald speaks to children in twenty-five languages including Russian, Portuguese, Tagalog, Hindi, Cantonese and Papiamento. 3(p. 13) A 1996 survey of children’s television programming in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK and the United States found that McDonald’s was the most prolific advertiser overall.

But does it work?

Commenting on the results of the previously mentioned study of children’s preference for food with a McDonald’s packaging, company spokesman Walt Riker stated that McDonald’s had been “actively addressing” the issue of children and nutrition and that McDonald’s was “providing solutions.” However, Dr. Victor Stasbuger, an author of American Academy of Pediatrics policy calling for limits on marketing to children argued that the study illustrated the success of fast food marketing to children: “Advertisers have tried to do exactly what this study is talking about–to brand younger and younger children, to instill in them an almost obsessional desire for a particular brand-name product.”

Impact on health

In 1998, 89% of children in the United States eight years of age or younger had visited a McDonald’s at least once a month. In response to this information, R.J. Milano, a McDonald’s Vice President stated that their goal for the following year was to reach 100%. He boasted “I’m going to own every kid transaction out there.” 3(p. 291). The health impact for both youth and adults of increased intake of salt, fat and sugar associated with the consumption of fast and junk foods has become clear as rates childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes have escalated. At least 30% of calories in the average child’s diet are currently derived from fast food, salty snacks, sweets and soft drinks. In response to increased media attention and legal action, fast food companies such as McDonald’s claim to be offering healthier alternatives. In addition, McDonald’s was one of 11 major food companies that recently agreed to limit voluntarily its food advertising to children . Recently McDonald’s began offering Happy Meals with slices of apples and milk. However, while the new Happy Meals did reduce overall fat and calorie content, the “Apple Dippers” included in the meal increased the sugar content. Additionally, while McDonald’s has done away with its “supersize” option for adults, in 2001 it introduced “Mighty Kids Meals” which offer more food for only slightly more money.

Regulations around the world

More than 50 other countries currently regulate marketing directed at children. Twenty-five European states prohibit advertising during children’s programming of a duration of 30 minutes or less. In 1992, Sweden banned all television marketing directed at children twelve and under. Similarly, advertising in children’s programming have been banned in Ireland, Norway, Belgium and Holland.1 Since 2001 Broadcasting Commission of Ireland has prohibited the use of celebrities and cartoon characters to advertise food. Regulations disallowing advertising to children 13 years or younger have been in effect since 1980 in the Canadian province of Quebec. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission lacks the authority to restrict television advertising. Given the previous failure of voluntary guidelines to reduce growing rates of obesity, numerous advocacy and public health groups have called for government regulations.

Recommendations

Many public health organizations in the United States and elsewhere have made specific recommendations. In December 2005, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a comprehensive report on the impact of food marketing to children in the United States. The report found that American children are not achieving basic nutritional goals both in terms of underconsumption of important nutrients and overconsumption of fat, salt and sugar. While the dietary patterns of children are a complex in origin and include cultural values, economic status, social environments and media environments, the IOM concluded that food and beverage marketing “influences the preferences and purchase requests of children, influences consumption at least in the short term, is a likely contributor to less healthy diets, and may contribute to negative diet-related health outcomes and risks among children and youth.”

Strategic Alliance, a coalition of nutrition and physical activity advocates in California, recommends that all marketing and advertising of junk and fast foods be eliminated for children and youth. Amongst other measures, International Association of Consumer Food Organizations (IACFO)—an international association of non-governmental organizations representing consumer interests in the areas of nutrition, food safety, and food policy—urges governments to restrict or ban all food advertisements to children and prohibit the marketing of soda, junk and fast foods in schools. The IACFO also points to the importance of global action on this issue, noting that restrictions in the developed world often send multinational corporations overseas to the global south where they market unhealthy products with greater ease. Given escalating global rates of diet related chronic disease, public health and advocacy calls for more stringent and federally and globally enforceable standards seem warranted. In the words of Gro Harlem Brundtland , former Director General of the World Health Organization: “Marketing approaches matter for public health. They influence our own–and in particular our children’s–patterns of behavior. Given that they are designed to succeed, they have serious consequences for those at whom they are targeted.”

Zoe Meleo-Erwin, MA is graduate student in sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Kathryn Montgomery is a professor in the Public Communication division of the School of Communication at American University where she heads the University’s Center for Social Media’s “Youth, Media and Democracy” project. She also works with the Center for Digital Democracy and the Berkeley Media Studies Group. In 1991, Montgomery founded the media advocacy group the Center for Media Education where she served as President for twelve years before the Center was closed. She is the author of two books, Target: Prime Time. Advocacy Groups and the Struggle over Entertainment Television (Oxford University Press, 1989) and Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet (MIT Press, 2007), as well as other numerous publications including the 2007 report Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing: Targeting Children and Youth in the Digital Age which she coauthored with Jeff Chester. Montgomery has been a strong advocate in the areas of youth, health, education, and the democratic use of media.

Her research and advocacy work helped lead to the passage of a Federal Communications Commission ruling which required a minimum of three hours per week of educational/informational television programming for children; a television content based ratings system, and the first federal legislation designed to protect children’s privacy on the internet.

Corporations and Health Watch spoke with Kathryn Montgomery about the new digital media environment, how corporations target children and young people as consumers in increasingly sophisticated ways, and what efforts might be taken to curtail such corporate practices.

CHW: Tell me about your early work on youth, digital media and marketing with the Center for Media Education.

KM: Early on we began looking closely at digital media. Here was a powerful new medium coming into place and not very many people were really looking at how it was going to affect children. The debates were mainly about pornography and safety online. We were given funding in the mid 90s by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to examine the marketing targeted to children on the Web. We also got a research grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to look at Alcohol and Tobacco marketing on the web. Even though there were a lot of people concerned about advertising in traditional media, not enough people were looking at the digital media. And this is where all marketing and advertising are going. If you’re going to do any interventions, you have to understand where it’s all headed. We also wanted to educate not only our fellow advocates and the professionals and academics in the field, but the regulators themselves. So we provided the kind of details that could help them in their investigations. Our efforts to document the marketing practices targeted at children resulted in the first law to protect children’s privacy on the internet.

CHW: Can you give me an overview of the current scope of marketing to youth?

KM: Well you know it’s kind of hard to put a figure on it. I know that at the present time all marketing online figures are something like 80 billion. It’s growing very rapidly, and children and teenagers are a very big market online. It is important to understand that in this new media environment the distinctions between online and offline are being completely blurred and, in some cases, obliterated, so we’re really just talking about an overall shift in the way marketing is done this notion of the “360 degree” approach which we wrote about in our report. The marketing encompasses a lot of different platforms; it is designed to be ubiquitous in children’s lives, following them wherever they go, online and off.

CHW: Although there’s a lot of integration, how is internet marketing to children different than what you would find in television or other forms of media like magazines?

KM: We’re talking about a complete integration of advertising and content. In many cases we’re talking about websites and other digital content areas that are engaged not just in marketing to children, but enlisting their involvement in market research. So it’s a very different, more all encompassing kind of medium and the marketing may be more subtle because it isn’t just that you’re seeing a lot of commercials but it’s a website; it might be an adver-game a gaming site that’s really for a product.

CHW: What can you tell me about adver-games? Unlike product placement, this seems like a very active engagement of youth with corporate marketing.

KM: Right. Some of the advertising in interactive games that we documented in our food marketing report is pretty similar to product placement but it’s interactive: you’ve got players who can interact with the ad. The ads are programmed and the software is programmed to track people’s behavior; they do profiling so that they know who you are. The whole thing is engagement; they want you engaged with these products.

CHW: Have you seen any data that would suggest that this sort of interactive marketing is more effective than just passively seeing a commercial?

KM: Except for those who are working for industry, I haven’t seen anything that really tries to address these things. A lot of market research is proprietary. To my knowledge there has been very little, if any, research within the academic community. I’ve been trying to get other academics to do this kind of research for a long time. I think partly because it’s changing so quickly, it’s kind of hard to get a handle on. And it’s not easy to develop research designs that will work. But if you look at the literature, and we cite a huge amount of it in our report, there’s documentation from the industry that these things are successful. Now obviously they’re experimenting with some of them, some things work better than others, but they are spending huge amounts of money in market research. This digital generation is the most researched generation in history.

CHW: Can you explain how “cradle to grave marketing” works?

KM: Marketers have been saying for at least twenty years, that with young people, in addition to the fact that they have money to spend, you want to instill brand loyalty. So you want to be able to get those young people to want your product at a young age. And now, interactive marketing and this incredible capability for profiling adds new meaning to “cradle to grave” because they can not only get you to feel loyal to the product they can actually follow you from cradle to grave, across platforms.

CHW: What about the tobacco or alcohol corporations that are specifically prohibited from marketing to children, how do they go about this?

KM: Of course they [the tobacco industry] say they’re not doing it, but then their efforts have been curtailed obviously. The settlement with the attorneys general forbade certain practices but we also know that they try their best to use other venues. The work that we did predated that decision because our report came out in 1997, but we did not find a lot of overt marketing online of these tobacco products to young people. Now it’s a lot harder to track. We know that in other media they’ve used the kinds of strategies that are designed to circumvent any rules and regulations and we still have major problems with teen smoking. So whether it’s some sort of peer-to-peer effort, there are all kinds of strategies that these companies may be using. We know that for all product categories targeting youth if you can link your product up with pop culture that’s very successful.

The alcohol companies don’t want any regulation on their marketing and they would argue that they’re not marketing to young people. But what we’ve found, and I’m not sure this has really changed, is that online they make a lot of their websites and their marketing efforts very appealing to young people of course they’re saying that you have to be 21, but there are many ways to get around that.

CHW: Can you describe how the food industry, which is not prohibited from marketing to youth, uses digital media and integrative media strategies?

KM: There are a million different ways they do it and they have really developed a panoply of interactive techniques that are designed to engage young people with their brand. They’re very complicated. Anything from putting their ads on mobile technology, offering coupons, having young people spread the word through email to their friends or working through social networks like MySpace and FaceBook to encourage people to use the brand icon, to putting what are known as viral videos on YouTube. Also there’s user generated video, this idea that you get young people to actually create the ads themselves for the products. Pizza Hut did this: “We can make you the vice president of pizza if you’ll make an ad.” They get hundreds and hundreds of young people, probably many more than that, creating their own ads, posting them, and then it spreads like wildfire. And we also know that food marketers and beverage marketers and others are researching who the most effective influencers are, and are recruiting them to promote brands among their peers.

CHW: How do they go about recruiting these influential young people?

KM: Oh there are all kinds of ways they do it. Market researchers can study social networking sites to find the young people with the largest networks of friends, for example. They have found ways to identify online who the “brand sirens” are, the people who like to talk about brands among their friends. There’s a company called Tremor that recruits young people to be part of this elite group of “tremorites.” It’s run by Proctor and Gamble and they work for other clients as well, including some of the beverage companies. Teens are invited to become a part of a privileged group and then given new products and programs in advance and encouraged to tell their friends about them.

The other thing to understand about marketing, particularly to adolescents in the new digital media, is that a lot of these efforts are designed to tap into the fundamental developmental needs of young people. Young people are experimenting with their identities: “how do I show who I am?” Of course marketers have done this for a long time. But now they have techniques that are even more powerful. So if you’re creating your profile on MySpace, in addition to your friends, you can include the brands that you like and that express who you are. Peer-to-peer involvement and being able to use the new digital media to convey your own ideas and to express what you think and feel lends itself beautifully to viral marketing.

CHW: One of the ways in which corporations go about getting their message out there broadly is through market segmentation: breaking up potential groups into discreet groups that can be reached with unique messages. Can you talk about some of the ways that food, alcohol, tobacco, and other industries go about trying to reach a broad range of young people?

KM: This is a rapidly changing digital media marketplace, so as we speak new techniques are being developed. But what I think we are seeing generally with market segmentation in the digital era is further, more refined and more microtargeted marketing that breaks people down not just by their preferences, demographic groups, spending and zip codes, but by their behavioral qualities that can be tracked online through behavioral profiling and database marketing. The important thing is that with these new, sophisticated technologies and the interactive media, people are marketed to as individuals not as segmented groups. Marketers are able to find out what you personally will respond to and they can adjust their advertising accordingly. And particularly looking at the social networking platforms where they can use the information you post about yourself, it’s incredible what these marketers are able to know about you. I think that most consumers don’t have a clue; I don’t think parents have a clue.

CHW: What’s your opinion about the recent announcement by eleven major food and drink companies to voluntarily limit television advertisements to US children under the age of 12?

KM: Well I’ve been monitoring this pretty closely and I was a speaker at the Federal Trade Commission workshop when the most recent announcement was made. There are some very important limitations to what these industries have agreed to do. First of all, the fast food restaurants were not well represented; we’ve got Burger King, before we had McDonald’s, but that whole industry is still not on board. Secondly, the changes that they have vowed to make are only going to apply to marketing that’s targeted at children under the age of 12. That’s totally leaving out adolescents and I would say its even leaving out “tweens” because they watch the stuff that’s targeted at older kids. Adolescents are very much at risk for obesity and they also make more of their own decisions about what they eat.

They’re not at the store saying, “buy me that;” they’re out in those fast food restaurants with their friends. So they need some interventions and the industry hasn’t come forward with anything. Finally, most of the voluntary advertising guidelines are focused on television, with very few changes to the emerging practices in the digital media.

CHW: Would you say that this announcement was something of a preemptive strategy by the industry to avoid further criticism?

This is a pattern: the industry will try to get by with as little as it can and hope the problem goes away. It will not bring up anything else unless we say “aha, but you’re doing this” and there’s a huge outcry about it and the government cares. So they are way ahead of the regulators and way ahead of the public on this stuff. I’m not suggesting that the industry is doing nothing; yes they are doing something, but they don’t want to be regulated. So they’re doing something to keep from being regulated. We need ongoing pressure on the industry and ongoing monitoring of what the practices are and the government has to play a leadership role. And I think the FTC is, but we’ll see what happens next. This is a longterm problem that’s going to take longterm strategies and none of the advocates and health professionals and other stakeholders can afford to let up the pressure. We have to continue; we’re in here for the long haul and its very important.

CHW: What do you think are the best policy solutions to curtail the influence of corporate marketing on youth and youth spaces?

KM: Well it’s a tough area to regulate directly. I don’t think it’s politically viable to call for a ban on advertising. These bans have not worked in the past. You cannot reverse these trends. But I think you can call for some rules of the game, which could include identifying certain practices that marketers should not use. When you deal with products like junk food, soft drinks, fast food restaurants, alcohol and tobacco, there you can have more restrictions. We haven’t had a very courageous government in the past that has wanted to tackle these marketing practices, and unfortunately the advocacy community has not had the knowledge and sophistication about the nature and extent of digital marketing to push an agenda. But we’re working to try to educate people to really see that there are some areas where interventions should be made and there is a proper role for government in developing them.

CHW: And do you see policy efforts as something that should happen at the national or international levels or is there potential for change at the state and municipal levels as well?

KM: Most of these are global corporations, so I think there is a need for some global initiatives, for groups across the world to work together and for regulatory agencies to work together. But at the same time I think there could be some statebased interventions or local interventions, certainly in terms of public accountability and education. In the tobacco control and alcohol control movement there have been some very successful efforts at the local and the state level.

CHW: What does digital marketing to youth look like outside of the United States? Is it a worldwide phenomenon, or is it more based in developed countries?

KM: We know this is a global phenomenon. In many ways, digital marketing is leapfrogging over national boundaries and directly into developing countries. Marketers are moving in very swiftly and very aggressively in many of these countries and sometimes I think too quickly to do anything about it. At the same time, we need to recognize that there are other critical international policy issues in addition to addressing the role of marketing. For example, we need to ensure equitable access to digital technologies. Because these technologies are a good thing for young people and we still have a digital divide in many places throughout the world. We will also need policies to ensure that the digital media are harnessed to improve the lives of young people.

CHW: In terms of advocacy efforts to change corporate practices, what tactics do you see as being effective?

KM: I think we need a multiple set of strategies coming from all kinds of different directions, at the national level, at the international level, at the state level, at the local level. And we need many more groups and individuals involved. And I think that the press is very important. If the pressure does not involve public exposure and what the health advocates have called “public shaming” then its not going to have much of an impact. You have to put heavyduty pressure on the industry, which will, in turn succeed in educating the public and letting policy makers know this is a problem. Strategic use of the media is a critical part of it.

CHW: Do you think that there’s any potential for digital media to serve as a counterforce against marketing to youth?

KM: I do think there’s a potential. The study we did in 2004 on the Internet and youth civic engagement showcased hundreds of nonprofit websites for and by young people. But we also found that many of these ventures were seriously underfunded. It was really not easy to compete in the powerful marketplace. Nor was it easy to recruit young people to be involved when you have the glitz of a MySpace or the popularity of a FaceBook. So I think they’ve got a lot of challenges facing them. But I believe there’s a huge amount of potential there. There’s a lot of great stuff going on that’s sort of spontaneously built by young people. It’s a wonderful thing that kids can get involved. And a number of young people are launching political campaigns within social networking platforms.

CHW: What do you believe are the implications of digital viral marketing on health and wellbeing of young people?

KM: What people need to understand about the digital media environment is that it is completely different from what we’ve seen before with our conventional media. This new digital media culture is everywhere, all the time, in the lives of young people and not only connecting you to other people, but also connecting you through this interactive umbilical cord to corporations. We are looking at a compelling culture that ties one’s sense of identity closely to corporate imperatives. It is designed to engage us and socializes us at an early age into being consumers. There is positive potential to promote health, so I think it’s not all one way or the other but you need to be very careful that the consumer culture part of it doesn’t smother and overwhelm the other parts. We need a broad public debate about how this new media culture can be a positive force in children’s lives.

If current trends continue, warns a new British government report released in October 2007, 60% of men, 50% of women and 25 of children in the UK will be obese by 2050. Changes in food production and marketing, fewer opportunities for physical activity, and current eating habits have made obesity the default option. “If we just behave normally we will become obese,” said Sir David King, the UK government’s chief science adviser.

The report, “Tackling Obesities: Future Choices” was prepared by Foresight, a government research group, to examine how the UK can deliver a sustainable response to obesity over the next 40 years. The project has assembled evidence and expertise from academic disciplines as diverse as epidemiology, food science, genetics, psychology and sociology, and from professionals and interested organizations within and beyond Government. While the report acknowledges that reducing the prevalence of obesity will require long-term action from numerous stakeholders at multiple levels, it concludes that “the lead must come from Government.”

The report attracted extensive media coverage and the UK health secretary Alan Johnson warned that the public health threat posed by obesity in the UK is a “potential crisis on the scale of climate change.” However, in recognition of the report’s pessimistic outlook for obesity and the epidemic’s deep roots in British society, UK public health minister Dawn Primarolo announced that the UK was delaying its goal of halting the rise in childhood obesity from 2010 to 2020.

Advocates charge report lacks blueprint

In response to the report, the Children’s Food Campaign, an alliance of more than 300 organizations, urged stronger and more immediate action. It suggested three specific steps the government could take to reduce obesity.

First, the Campaign called on the government to ban all TV junk food advertising before 9 pm. Second, the UK should act to reduce children’s exposure to online and cell phone junk food advertising. Third, it should enact a simpler “traffic light” food labeling system that provides consumers with clear guidance.

Finally, British schools should make food skills a required part of the curriculum so that every child leaves school knowing how to make simple nutritious meals.

According to Dr. Mike Rayner, Director of the British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group at Oxford University and Chair of the Children’s Food Campaign, “the government has to make a philosophical leap. It should no longer see its role as gently guiding the food industry towards more responsible behavior, but instead as the protector of children’s interests, ready to take action to improve children’s diet and well being.”

Sue Davies, chief policy adviser to the UK consumer organization Which? also urged the government to go “further and faster” by enacting tougher rules against promotion of unhealthy food to children within three months. “Obesity is a complex problem, she said, “but the solutions currently on the table are not up to the task.” Which? recently initiated a campaign to force the British food industry to market food more responsibly and produced a campaign toolkit to help parents groups and community organizations to pressure government and industry to act more forcefully.

New Public Debate on Food Policy and Role of Food Industry

In many ways, the British debate on food policy mirrors the discussions in the United States. However, the new Foresight report and the forceful and widely covered criticism by public health and nutrition researchers and advocates has put the question about the roles of government and industry in reversing the obesity epidemic squarely on the public agenda. Whether the US 2008 Presidential election as well as the local, regional and national mobilizations to improve children’s diet, promote food justice and reduce obesity can provide a similar opportunity here in the United States remains to be seen.

For thirty years, Corporate Accountability International has fought and won campaigns against corporate abuse in the Food, Energy, Tobacco, Water, Oil, and Agribusiness industries. Many of those victories have set precedents in the fight for corporate accountability.

Early history as focused on Nestlé and infant formula

Corporate Accountability International began in 1977, under the name Infant Formula Action Coalition (INFACT). Its first target was the multinational food company Nestlé. At that time, Nestlé was the world’s largest producer of infant formula. Its aggressive global advertising and marketing campaigns promoted infant formula at the expense of breastmilk, despite overwhelming evidence that breast milk was the healthier choice.

Public health advocates were especially critical of Nestlé’s marketing in impoverished regions where money to purchase the formula, access to clean water, and proper sanitation of bottles was scarce or absent all together. As a result, the product was widely misused as people watered down the formula in an attempt to save money. The resulting health problems for mothers, children and families as well as population health were a direct result of Nestlé’s marketing practices.INFACT led a campaign and boycott of Nestlé which centered on bringing the company’s health and human rights abuses into public view and holding the corporation accountable. After nearly 10 years of fighting to restrict Nestlé’s behavior, INFACT saw victory as the World Health Organization (WHO) established global infant formula marketing standards. Nestlé then altered its marketing practices in “economically poor” regions that had been specifically hard hit by their practices, although battles between global infant formula companies and public health activists continue. According to Corporate Accountability International, the Nestle Boycott was an unprecedented victory for grassroots consumer campaigns—the first time a major corporation came to the table with ordinary consumers and agreed to make changes in its behavior worldwide.

Transformation to more broadly focused organization

Since the success of their Nestlé boycott, Corporate Accountability International has expanded, launching several successful campaigns related indirectly or directly to public health. For example, from 1984-1993, Corporate Accountability International (still INFACT at the time) took on General Electric, then the largest producer and promoter of nuclear weapons, for their role contributing to Cold War nuclear arms race. The organization began an international boycott of GE’s commercial goods that highlighted GE’s role in nuclear arms manufacturing. According to Corporate Accountability International, the boycott contributed to GE’s decision to drop its nuclear weapons business.

Beginning in the early 1990’s, Corporate Accountability International launched their Challenge Big Tobacco campaign and by 2003 achieved what its activists view as their biggest accomplishment: the WHO’s enactment of a global tobacco treaty, known as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The global tobacco treaty is the world’s first public health and corporate accountability treaty. It has the potential to save millions of lives and change the way tobacco corporations operate around the world. The treaty sets powerful precedents for regulating other industries like the pharmaceutical, water, food and agribusiness and oil industries. In 2004, INFACT changed its name to Corporate Accountability International to more accurately reflect the organization’s expanded mission.

Current Campaigns

Corporate Accountability International currently runs campaigns focusing on the Water, Tobacco, Oil, Food and Agribusiness, and Big Box Retail Industries. Its campaigns target some of the world’s largest corporations with the most direct impact on health, the environment and human rights.

“Think Outside the Bottle”

Corporate Accountability International’s current Challenge Corporate Control of Water campaign fights the privatization of water and the corporations that are attempting global control of this vital resource. The organization has seen national success with the ‘Think Outside the Bottle’ campaign that targets corporations like Pepsi, Coke and Nestlé for their practice of bottling tap water and selling it back to the public. Initial achievements include working to convince mayors to cancel bottled water contracts and to pass a resolution at the June 2007 U.S. Conference of Mayors that supported municipal water and called for a study of the impact of bottled water on cities.

Another water victory came as a direct result of a Corporate Accountability International campaign. Yielding to pressure from that group and other activists, Pepsi announced in July that it will make changes to the Aquafina bottled water drink label naming the waters actual source: the tap. In a press release, Corporate Accountability International called Pepsi’s concession an important first step. In a recent interview on Democracy Now!, Gigi Kellett, the group’s associate campaigns director, explained, she found that:

People on the street… don’t know where the water is coming from. And the bottled water corporations have spent tens of millions of dollars on ads that make people think that bottled water is somehow better, cleaner, safer than our public water systems. And in reality, we know that that’s not true. And so, we want to make sure that we’re increasing our people’s confidence in their public water systems once again and knowing that we need to be investing in our public systems.

Corporate Accountability International defines the success of its campaigns by their ability to persuade corporations to change policies or practices. In exchange for such corporate concessions, the organization ends the boycotts it has organized such as those against Nestlé, General Electric, and Philip Morris/Altria-owned Kraft. This approach relies on grassroots participation, both national and international, to expose unhealthy corporate behaviors and the political ties that keep corporations unchecked by the public sector. The campaigns seek to create public visibility and open debate of key global public health issues.

Tobacco Campaigns

In its Tobacco Industry Campaign, which began in 1993, Corporate Accountability International worked closely with the World Health Organization to target the tobacco industry.

In the early 1990s the organization began campaigns against Philip Morris (now Altria) and RJR Nabisco (now Reynolds American Tobacco). The campaign called for a boycott of then Philip Morris/Altria-owned Kraft, during which Corporate Accountability International exposed Big Tobacco’s attempts to hide behind Kraft’s family friendly image and to disguise its political influence. This campaign may have contributed to the recent company spin-off of Kraft. For the past 14 years, Corporate Accountability International members have attended Philip Morris’ annual shareholders meetings to raise health, human rights and other issues.

At the 2007 Philip Morris/Altria shareholder meeting, for example, Corporate Accountability International Executive Director Kathryn Mulvey called on PM/Altria CEO Louis Camilleri to honor a commitment the company had made to halt sponsorship of Formula One auto racing. Your corporation continues to sponsor these races. You are violating an agreement you signed six years ago—and the global tobacco treaty, which bans tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship in ratifying countries. In this effort, the group used the success of the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC), to regulate the promotion of tobacco, as a tool to put pressure on individual companies.

As a result of the FCTC, the tobacco industry has faced new scrutiny in its marketing practices and new pressure to adhere to global standards. Corporate Accountability International, as one of many NGOs around the world with official relations with the WHO, played a key role in securing a strong FCTC and in strengthening enforcement action. Together, these hundreds of small and large NGOs have the potential to create a united front against Big Tobacco.

Last month, the President’s Cancer Panel, in which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute were represented, released a report urging the President to ratify the FCTC and to more vigorously regulate food companies that promoted high fat, high calorie, low nutrient carcinogenic diets. The report, “Promoting Healthy Lifestyles,” reminds us; Even absent ratification, by signing the FCTC, the U.S. is obligated not to undermine the goals of the treaty. Thus, the Cancer Panel’s recommendations echoed the call of Corporate Accountability International Senior Organizer Megan Rising, who said, The time has come for the President to heed the call of his top health advisors and the U.S. public and submit the global tobacco treaty to the Senate for ratification. With even a presidential panel accepting its recommendations, it’s clear that Corporate Accountability International has contributed to putting corporate accountability on the nation’s public health agenda.

Photo Credit: All photos courtesy of Corporate Accountability International

In March 2006, the newsletter Informed Eating interviewed Richard Daynard, professor at Northeastern University School of Law.

Food activists often ask what lessons they can learn from the fight against Big Tobacco. In this interview, published in March 2006 in Informed Eating, a newsletter of food politics and analysis, Richard Daynard, a professor at Northeastern University School of Law, chair of the Tobacco Products Liability Project, and director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute’s Law and Obesity Project, describes his views on the similarities and differences between the public health advocacy on food and tobacco.

October 27, 2016 NRA Top Trump Funder National Rifle Association committees making independent campaign expenditures to oppose Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton have spent more than $14 million on the race, surpassing the spending of the most active pro-Trump Super PAC. Acc... Read More >